


Ancient Bones

by Notfye



Category: The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dreams, F/F, Fever Dreams, Genderbending, Genderswap, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notfye/pseuds/Notfye
Summary: Achilles is running at the beach when she sees the girl for the first time.She’s sitting alone, legs pulled in to her chest, skirt pooled around her. She turns from the ocean and stares when Achilles comes closer. Her hair blows around her in the stormy wind; She is indifferent-looking, her eyes dark.Achilles’ running slows for a beat, tripping on nothing, before she looks away and runs faster.





	Ancient Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Femslash February! I actually wrote this for the Made of Memories TSOA Zine, but now that the selling period is done, we're allowed to post our works (didn't that work out nicely?)
> 
> Anyway, if you're wondering why I posted nothing from June to November, this is why.
> 
> Enjoy!

Achilles is running at the beach when she sees the girl for the first time. It’s windy and humid, there’s a storm blowing in, and the clouds roll heavily above them. 

 

She’s sitting alone, legs pulled in to her chest, skirt pooled around her. She turns from the ocean and stares when Achilles comes closer. Her hair blows around her in the stormy wind; She is indifferent-looking, her eyes dark.

 

Achilles’ running slows for a beat, tripping on nothing, before she looks away and runs faster. 

She tries to understand the stillness that they held between them for that half moment,  and when it seems she can’t, she pushes it from her mind.

 

Her dreams that night are forlorn. There is a beach, but not the one she knows so well. It is old, there is something there that is older than anything she has ever come across before. The water is warm, and the sun gleams. She is not sure her age, nor anything about herself, just the sand and surf that surrounds her.

She sits on the beach and tries to remember what it is that she’s forgetting.

When she wakes, it’s before her alarm. She blinks dumbly in the light pouring from her windows. It takes her a minute to warm to the world again, to remember where she is. Something of that old world clings to her like smoke, tries to take control like a muscle memory. Achilles ignores it. She runs further than usual, the drumming of her feet pushing her dreams from her head.

 

Achilles sees the girl at school. Somehow it didn’t occur to her that she’d be there, too. 

She sits in the second row of Achilles’ biology class, doodling in her notebook. In the seat next to her sits Briseis, a girl Achilles doesn’t really know. She thinks Briseis’ taking notes for both of them. 

The teacher stops in the middle of a sentence. “Patroclus,” he says.

Both the girl and Achilles’ heads snap up. 

“Are you paying attention?” 

Patroclus nods, and even from where Achilles is sitting, she can see how nervous she is. The teacher seems satisfied, and goes back to his lesson. 

“Who’s the new girl?” Achilles asks Diomedes after class. 

“Patroclus? I don’t know,” she says. “Briseis is friends with her, but,” and she shrugs. 

“Thanks,” Achilles says, and doesn’t really mean it.  Diomedes nods and they walk together until Achilles reaches her English class. 

 

She runs in her dreams that night. At least, she thinks, it is something she knows. It’s like before, something that feels ancient; The track is hardly a track, just beaten dirt. Still, she runs, and she wins, and it’s only when she’s given a laurel wreath that something finally clicks.

 

In the Saturday morning light, Achilles can try to pretend that her life is still mostly normal. Maybe she’s having weird dreams about fallen empires, but everyone does, sometimes, she’s sure. 

She takes her run to the library in town. Inside, she asks the first librarian she finds, “What country had all the laurel wreaths?”  
The librarian looks at her like she’s crazy, and Achilles suddenly remembers what she must look like, a sweaty, flushed girl interrogating a civil servant.

“Um,” says the librarian, “the Greeks?”  

“Great,” Achilles says. “Do you have any books on them?”

The librarian arcs an eyebrow but motions for Achilles to follow her anyway. 

 

Achilles is offered far too many books to carry, so she just takes the three thickest. She spends the rest of the day reading, but there’s nothing that applies to her, only philosophy and poetry. The tragedies feel familiar, though not quite  _ right _ , but it’s the only lead she has. By the evening she’s given herself a headache with all the reading. She takes a shower and goes to bed early. 

 

“I heard you were here,” Achilles says. She doesn’t know why. Dreams are funny like that.

A boy sits in front of her, dark hair and browned skin half hidden behind ceramic jars. His eyes are wide; he looks bony. Achilles thinks her voice sounds younger than it should. The tendons in her hands show sharply. 

The dream gets hazy after that, less of a painting and more of a sketch, but she thinks she becomes friends with the boy. And then, at the end, everything gets very still. The boy has disappeared. Achilles walks to the beach in the dark, alone. There is a woman there, inhuman, too tall and pale and sleek for humanity. 

 

Achilles wakes up. 

It’s 4 AM. She’s not tired anymore, and even if she was, the woman in her dreams was a chilling enough sight to drive sleep away. Her first instinct is to run, but it’s still dark out. She pulls her backpack over, craving something normal, something sane. Despite it, when the morning comes, she goes to comb through the Greek tragedies at the library. 

 

“Are you alright?” Automedon asks at lunch a few days later. Achilles looks up from her copy of  _ Antigone _ . 

Automedon looks earnest, worried. She looks like a good friend, like Achilles could tell her about the dreams and not be called crazy. 

“I’m fine,” she says anyway. 

“Are you sure?” Odysseus calls from down the lunch table. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” Achilles repeats, wanting to throw the focus of the table away from her, “Just-”  
“You’ve seemed really in your head lately,” Automedon cuts in, concern creasing her brow.

“And we all know that’s out of character,” Agamemnon says, smirking. 

“Okay,” Achilles says, voice rising, “Okay. Thank you for your concern, all of you, but I’m fine. And if my life suddenly begins to implode, you’ll be the first to know.” She gets up from the table. “I’ll see you all later.” 

She shoves the play in her jacket pocket and walks swiftly away without a plan. The idea to skip class comes unbidden but welcome, and she hasn’t got anything better, so she goes with it. 

She makes it to outside the school when she sees Patroclus sitting under a tree. Achilles, in an unthinking moment, calls out to her, and she looks up.

Achilles jogs over. “Hey,” she says. She has nothing to follow it up with.

Patroclus blinks at her. “Hi,” she says. 

“I think I’m skipping the rest of my classes.”

“Okay,” Patroclus says in confusion. 

“Do you want to come?”

There’s a beat of silence, then another.

“Okay,” she says again. 

 

It’s awkward at first. But then they get to talking, and with each answer more genuine than the last, things start to move along. Achilles learns that Patroclus moved from a town in the mountains, that she prefers the seaside. 

“It wasn’t a very good place,” Patroclus says, “just a bunch of coal mines.”

“You hated it,” Achilles says, a little amused. 

Patroclus turns to her, wide-eyed.

“It’s the way you talk about it,” Achilles says.

“Well,” Patroclus starts, and sounds a little like she’s forcing the words out, “yeah, I did hate it.”

They’re silent for a few minutes, and Achilles frets the entire time. She doesn’t want to slip back so easily into awkwardness. 

Patroclus speaks again, “I like the ocean. It’s comforting.”

“Like home?” Achilles asks. She thinks it’s the right thing to say. 

“Yeah. Like home.” Patroclus smiles. 

 

Achilles runs out of Greek tragedies a day later. She starts in on Homer, reads a copy of  _ The Iliad _ under her desk in half her classes. She has to stop around lunch, it’s cutting her in a way that she can’t quite explain, that makes her feel ill. As though she knows these people. As though she is grasping at something but still can’t reach. 

She sits with Patroclus and Briseis at lunch. It is a strange, numb sort of day. She does her homework as soon as she gets home and falls asleep. 

 

The boy from her dreams is still with her in this one. They’re older now, but still young, still learning to be adults. The boy looks familiar now that he’s grown, eye color and cheekbones reminding her of someone. 

There are woods at first, but not for long. It is just as confusing as before, too many days shoved into too few minutes. There’s dancing and a girl who cries, and the miserable precursor to dread. Men whose laughs sound like barking dogs; a swaying ship. A beach, flooded with chanting people. The say something sharp a foreign, full of chalky sounds. It gets louder and louder the closer she gets. She can feel herself smile. 

 

The cheers usher her into the waking world. The numbers on her alarm say it’s midnight, but Achilles thinks it feels later. 

She decides that it’s time for this to end. There’s only a few books left for her to read; She rushes through them and is done by 3 AM. 

It’s a lot, she thinks. Her chest is heavy and her lungs feel reluctant to work. Part of her feels silly, stupid, pulls at the assumption that any of this means anything. And yet, here it all is, slotting into place. The names, the faces, strange echos of her life. She’s either crazy, or this is what her dreams have been about all along.

And they started with Patroclus.

Patroclus, who has the same cheekbones and eyes as the boy in her dreams. 

Patroclus. 

It’s enough. She knows it’s right. 

 

She goes to the beach instead of trying to sleep. She’s too keyed up now, anyway. The moon is high over the water, its crescent turning the tops of waves white. She knows that her mother in her dreams is from the sea. Somehow, that makes it less scary to be out alone at night.

The water is warm, comforting. She wades in to her ankles, just enough to feel the tide come in. 

And, yeah. Some things never change. 

 

She brings Patroclus with her the next night. It’s earlier and cooler, starting to truly feel like autumn, but Achilles shoves her hands into her jacket pockets and hopes for the best. 

It’s a short walk. So near to the coast it always is. They pick over the stones and shells together until they reach the water. 

“The sea,” Achilles says, smiling, gesturing grandly.

“I know,” says  Patroclus, clearly meaning to tease but the fondness in her voice betrays her. She dips her hand in the waves, wades in once she sees that it’s warm. “Is it safe at night?”

“I think so,” Achilles says, “I was here last night.”

Patroclus turns back to her. “Why?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she sits down on the sand.

“Does that happen a lot?” Patroclus walks over to sit with her.

“Recently, yeah.” She lets the conversation lull between them. “I think I know what’s bothering me, though.” She turns to look Patroclus in the eye; Her gaze isn’t met until Patroclus flicks her eyes up from Achilles’ lips. 

“That’s good,” Patroclus croaks out. 

Achilles lets her eyes fall half closed, looks at Patroclus’ lips. “Yeah,” she leans, imperceptibly, forward, “I miss sleeping.”

Patroclus’ hand reaches forward, and she takes it gently in her own. A few more inches, and the dreams will be gone. 

Patroclus’ phone chimes. They jump apart. 

“Oh, god,” Patroclus says, “I really need to get home.” She stands, a little frantically. 

“Are you-” Achilles starts to ask.

“I’m okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, and offers a smile.

“Be safe,” Achilles says, and then she’s gone. 

 

It’s easy enough for Achilles to fall asleep once she sneaks back inside, even though she knows what the dreams have in store for her. She thinks about the way the ocean looked, the way Patroclus looked, and it pulls her to sleep sweetly.

 

The dreams that night are deep and dark. She feels animalistic, alone. The battlefield rolls and swells beneath her, the sandy colored ground, the scrubby grass, and her, a man, in the middle of it all. There is blood, and carelessness. In this world, there is nothing left to fear, to lose. The only things are the beating of her heart, the want for sweet darkness.

 

She doesn’t wake up right away, When she does, she thinks that she might have been crying, her throat feels torn as though from screaming. She isn’t at school very long, Automedon sees her before first period and walks her to the nurse’s office.  

She tells her to feel better, and leaves Achilles to the white cots and overly-warm room.

 

The nurse tells her she has a fever. Her mother can’t pick her up, she’s too busy. Achilles convinces the nurse to let her walk herself home. She does, and as soon as she gets there, she collapses into bed. 

 

The dreams keep going. There are men, so many men, and women; a child, even. 

She kills them all. 

The dust comes up red around her, the air smells only of rot. There is smoke, and her own thick tears. The grief strikes her down but doesn’t kill her, no matter how much she wants it to. 

Still, the end comes. And when it does, she and the man she has spent her time as are happy. 

 

When she wakes up again, her room is dark and something in her ears hums uncomfortably. Through the curtains she can see the orange glow of sunset. Her blanket clings to her, suddenly far too hot; The fever’s broken. She flings off her sheets and then hears what woke her in the first place, someone knocking on her door.

She gets up too quickly and her vision turns to staticky black. It passes after a few moments, though, and walking down the hallway she finds that she doesn’t really need to put all her weight on the wall anymore. 

She runs a hand through her hair as she opens the door and her breath catches when she sees that it’s Patroclus standing there. 

“Hi,” Achilles says, trying to ignore how sweaty her hair feels. Patroclus looks like she’s just come from studying, white sweater turned to gold in the setting sun, and somehow Achilles still thinks they make a good picture; the well put-together student and the girl in a tank top and flannel pants. 

“Hi,” she says back, a little distantly, and Achilles tries not to overthink what  _ that  _ means. All they do is stare at each other for a moment, and then Patroclus picks up where she left off, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to show up unexpected.”

“It’s alright,” Achilles says, smiling a little. 

“You’ve been out of school a while.” 

“Have I?” Achilles asks, because she genuinely doesn’t know. Has she been gone for a week yet? Two?

“Yes,” she says, something like humor creeping into her voice, “I wanted to know if you were okay.”

“I am. I’ll probably be back in school tomorrow.”

“That’s good.”

They don’t say anything for a few minutes, just stand there, the dry leaves rustling above them, the evening air already taking hold in the wind. 

Eventually, Patroclus says, “You should get back to bed.”

“Yeah, probably. Thank you for coming by, I,” she pauses and fusses over what she wants to say, “I think you’re the only one who has.” She has no way of knowing, but it seems true enough.

Patroclus fumbles under the compliment, gives a quiet, “It’s nothing,” anyway. 

“See you tomorrow,” Achilles says, and when Patroclus echos it, she turns to head inside. Patroclus catches her by the wrist, Achilles turns back around to face her. Carefully, it seems, she kisses Achilles, just to the left of her mouth. 

“See you tomorrow,” she says again, lowly, not quite a whisper, and squeezes Achilles’ hand. After a moment, she pulls back, lets go, and leaves Achilles standing on her porch, moonstruck. 

 

Achilles goes back to sleep after she eats dinner and takes a shower. She dreams of nothing at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are dearly loved and cherished forever, so feel free!


End file.
